The Best Nightmare
by BeaBae
Summary: Plagued by sexual nightmares, Alfred F. Jones drops out of college and checks himself into a mental health institution seeking help. It's going well until his therapist suddenly suggests moving to private home visits to complete his recovery. Not sure what else to do but glad to get his life back, Alfred agrees. Noncon, violence, abuse of trust, bondage, mental instability.
1. Chapter 1

**Pairing: UkUs**

**Warnings: Non-con, manipulation, bondage, sexual violence abuse of trust, straight-up abuse, therapy, abuse of trust in therapy… you get it.**

000

"And in this dream, you were a demon?" his therapist, Arthur said, scribbling in a notepad and raising his eyebrows. "Being tortured by angels."

Alfred nodded, shaking in his seat. He'd wrapped the blanket from the couch around himself and curled up on the couch itself, his head against the arm pillow, letting nothing but his face peek out from the blue blanket. Not even his hair was exposed. Still, he felt the phantom brushes of fingers on his lips and mistook the bridge of his glasses for the pressure of a cloth over his eyes. "They were pulling out my wings and tugging on my tail."

"And you were naked this whole time?" Arthur said.

Alfred nodded.

"And you were aroused?"

The blanket did nothing to hide his blush.

"Yes," he said, his voice soft.

The hospital had been very accommodating to him. They gave him a private room so that when he woke from his nightmares—and he considered them nightmares!—with a raging boner, he didn't have to say anything if he didn't want to. The nurses always knocked before coming in and they didn't comment if he'd missed a spot trying to clean up. They were experimenting with medication right now. They all understood that he checked himself in because he wanted to get back out as fast as possible. His reasons were confidential. He had told no one outside of the staff. For all his friends and family knew, he had a stress-induced psychiatric break and was just trying to recover.

"My brother was in the dream, too," said Alfred. "Our doppelgangers were the angels who were… fucking us. But Mattie escaped back to hell and the angels' father took out their aggression on me. And. And they were," his eyes started to water. His throat closed up. His eyes had been red for days from sleep deprivation and crying. "They were really rough. I don't. I. They said I should like it because I was a devil and I was supposed to like the k-kinky stuff."

"Was the 'kinky stuff' cutting off your wings?" said Arthur. His face was perfectly straight. His eyebrows rose and fell occasionally, but he never smiled or laughed at Alfred's dreams, and that was all Alfred really wanted when he agreed to let Arthur analyze him.

He shook his head. "No. That was… that was like… rough sex. Toys. Like the, the dream I had where I was a sex doll…"

"The one about the pleasure facility?"

Alfred's breath hitched. He took off his glasses to wipe at his eyes, then nodded.

"Yeah. That one. They did stuff like in that one. My wings were just—so I couldn't get away like Matthew did. And it _hurt_. It really, really fucking hurt, I was crying, I woke up right afterwards crying and…"

"And you had an erection?"

Alfred cried as he nodded, wiping his eyes frantically, as though getting rid of all the tears would somehow get rid of the memory of that morning, four AM, his cock in his hand and his fingers in his ass as he frantically masturbated to the though of his therapist look-a-like hovering above him with hedge clippers.

He whimpered where he lay on the couch, the memory of his dream starting to make him to harden beneath the blanket. He kept the blue blanket wrapped around himself tightly, but his hands kept drifting downwards until he was palming himself through his clothes under the blanket, trying to not bite his lip make a noise to reveal himself. Tears continued making their slow way down his cheeks.

"I do have a theory," said Arthur, putting down his pencil and notebook and scooting his chair closer to the couch where Alfred lay. Arthur's crotch is less than three feet away from Alfred's face.

Unbidden, from behind his eyelids, comes the flash of Arthur's imaginary cock. Alfred's lips around it. Sucking while Arthur spoke. Sucking and being shoved down more and more until he chocked while Arthur spoke.

"By your own account, you haven't had any sexual trauma in your life. But you've had other fears, obviously. A fear of restraint. Of not being in control. Of being reduced to an object for the pleasure of others."

Arthur leaned over, smiling kindly, and took Alfred's cheek in his hand. Alfred opened his mouth, even though no fingers slid inside. He realized what he'd done a moment later and struggled to close his jaw again. His lips stayed parted. Arthur's hands stayed on his cheek. Not gripping. Not twisting. Alfred dug his nails into his own jeans and pretended there were dire consequences if he failed to stay perfectly still in Arthur's palm.

"Your dreams might be using your insecurities as a premise, and the sex is a way for you to find comfort in your fears so that you instead see your fears as a situation which might give you pleasure, rather than stress."

Alfred stared at Arthur's face, his blue eyes watching every contour and shade change. He knew Arthur's face perfectly by now. He had kissed Arthur in the dark, having to run his tongue down Arthur's chest before he could reach Arthur's cock.

"I have a dream about a nurse with your face giving me a lobotomy," Alfred blurted out.

Arthur blinked. Stares at him. Again, he does not laugh. He says, "Oh?"

"They're really hot," Alfred said, the tears returning fast enough to stream down onto Arthur's hand. Arthur watched him closely, a fascination in his eyes that Alfred didn't recognize. He was staring at the tears on Alfred's face more than Alfred's eyes. "And sometimes you're a college student who I signed up for your study, but it was a study on stimulus. And every time you pulled my hair I came. I was so, so tired. And then once you were fighting with I-Ivan, my friend, and you two were fighting over who would hunt me down—I-I think you were the angels' dad. I've sucked your cock. I'm so sorry, I don't know why I'm so fucked up. I haven't even known you more than a few weeks. I-I don't know if I can—"

Without warning, Arthur tugged Alfred's hair.

Alfred came in the blankets, arching backwards and shouting. His world flashed dark for a moment, and he wasn't sure if he'd closed his eyes or if something had stopped working for a moment because his heart was pounding far too fast, the hand was still gripping his hair and the inside of his boxers was sticky and come was starting to smear down the inside of his pants.

He stared up at his therapist, wide-eyed and panting harshly.

Arthur smiled faintly and released Alfred's head.

"I do believe I've found a solution for you."

For the first time in months, Alfred's breath flooded his lungs with ease. "You do?"

His therapist nodded. "I believe with some medication and routine house calls, say, twice a week, I should be able to… make the nightmares less of a concern, at the very least. I don't usually do home visits, but given this is a very…special circumstance, I'd be happy to visit you privately. I'll recommend you to be released within the next few days."

Alfred blinked. "Wait. I'm not staying here?"

Arthur shook his head. "It will be unnecessary. Trust me. At this point, recovering in the privacy your home would be much more beneficial. But before we end this session, are you sure you've told me all of the dreams you've had?"

Alfred swallowed and licked his lips, thinking hard, trying to ignore the irritation of not knowing what it was that triggered Arthur's epiphany. "Uh. There's a few, I think. Maybe. I don't totally remember."

"Describe them to me," said Arthur. "In detail, preferably."

He sat back in his chair, his legs spread apart and in Alfred's direct line of sight. Arthur readied his notepad once more. "Whenever you're ready."

000

**A/N**

**I totally meant to post this like... two months ago. Really.**

**This will be a four-shot. I have three chapters written with the fourth hopefully on the way. So everything will be pretty short and snappy. Since this is an abuse fic, the UkUs is the main focus but isn't going to survive because that would be awful. If you are going to be upset that the UkUs will not survive, then like... sorry? This is your warning? idk man do what you want but Al's gotta go somewhere other than down at some point.**

**This was inspired by shieunni's NSFW tumblr art. This was written and posted with her permission. **


	2. Chapter 2

**warnings for this part: sexual assault, violence, abuse of trust**

Alfred's move back into his apartment was not a smooth one.

He had over a thousand unread emails in his inbox and a small mountain of letters at the post office. He had two baskets worth of months-old laundry to wash. He had relatives wanting to come over every weekend to check in on him—which would have been okay if they could have all come at once and just had a house warming party for him! But some of his relatives weren't allowed in the same building at the same time, so he had to negotiate with everyone to make sure there weren't any homicides without making either of the fifty different family factions feel less valued because they had to be pushed back to a different weekend— and while he was figuring that mess out, he had a job to get, because even though his land lady had a heart of gold and agreed to hold his apartment until his release from the hospital (at which point he thought he would have been _fixed _and able to work wherever he could manage it without worrying about boners) she still needed to be paid for the next month's rent. He had most of that money stored up, but with all the bullshit he was going through trying to get food back in his apartment and buy a brand new lifetime supply of Kleenex, plus taxes, gas, and everything else he had to catch up on, his savings had an impressive dent in them.

Arthur had said he would do the house calls pro-bono, though. It was like the heavens had opened up and a heavenly choir had sung down on him. He went to church for the first time since his Problem had started a few months ago. He left quickly, yeah, because like hell he was going to meet the preacher's eye, knowing he was going to go home, take a nap, and have to jack off again, but… it had been nice to pop back into church again. He'd left an offering and explained to a couple community members that he'd been in the hospital for a while. Still on recovery. Not too sure how often he'd make it to services. But he was gonna get better. He was promised by a few members of the congregation that their prayers were with him, though they wished they'd known he was in the hospital so they could have started being worried for him sooner. It had made him feel a bit more confident, if nothing else.

From the church, Mr. Smith got him a job mowing a few peoples' lawns. Temporary, but helpful. Alfred had called his brother afterwards and gotten a promise of a job cleaning Matt's home once a week until he could land something more stable. Alfred told Matt that he wasn't sure how stable it'd be for a while. Matt said that was fine as long as Alfred got the mold out of the bathroom.

Matt was kind of an asshole. But he promised a weekly pancake and sausage breakfast in addition to the paycheck, so it was all right.

After that, Al filled out a few resumes for night shifts, crossed his fingers, and curled up on his couch for a nap, legs spread wide, feeling the cock thrust into him before he'd even fully realized he was asleep.

He woke to realize he wasn't the only thing being pounded.

"Uuh?" he wiped the drool off his lips and tumbled off the couch, scrambling to pull his clothes back into place before debating if he should run to answer the knocking a the door or first wrap a blanket around himself. He wanted a blanket. "Coming! Coming, give me a minute!"

Oh God, what if it was his landlady? He pulled the blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped it tightly around himself. He felt better pretending he was a burrito. Burritos didn't get boners and didn't get embarrassed. He hopped to the door as best he could and peeked out as he opened it. He squinted out, realizing that in his haste to find a blanket he had neglected to put his glasses back on from his nap. "H-hello?"

Arthur stared back at him. The excess tension drained out of him. He loosened his blankets and shuffled back to open the door wider. Arthur stepped in.

"Hey," Alfred said. "Hey, sorry about that just now, I, uh, I just woke up, so…"

Arthur closed the door for Alfred, smiling up at him, and said. "Another dream?"

Alfred nodded, blushing and staring down at his feet. He noticed the large bag Arthur was holding by his calf, but didn't feel compelled to ask. "Yeah. Nothing really… like, weird. Just… just being fucked."

"Were you restrained?" Arthur asked, moving into the inner part of Alfred's apartment and looking around the living room. His eyes found Alfred's abandoned shirt on the floor.

"Yeah," Alfred said, his mouth dry. "I usually am."

"Show me where."

The command caught Alfred off guard. His already hard cock twitched in his pants. There was no reason for that and he did his best to ignore it. "Uh," he said.

"Now, Alfred, if you would," said Arthur. His gaze left the shirt and turned again to Alfred.

Oh no. Oh no. He was _not _going to consciously imagine things about his therapist. Fuck that. With a deep breath, Alfred let the blanket slacken around him and he pointedly ignored how much he wanted to be on his knees, instead pointing up at his neck and moving to touch his wrists. He kept his voice beautifully steady. "Throat and wrists, usually.. together. They're usually all hooked together."

"Good. Thank you. Now, if you would lock your door and close the windows? I assume you would prefer these sessions to remain as private as possible."

Al nodded. "Yeah, uh, yeah. I haven't told anyone what was going on, really, so yeah, private is good."

Arthurr nodded with him. "I thought as much. I will say, part of the reason I wanted to move this to your home was so that it could be about as private as possible. The cure I have in mind is very likely to be somewhat… intense. I'm sure you understand, with your problem being as prevalent as it is, it will take some time and effort before the dreams become… a lesser concern," he spoke calmly, watching Alfred with his cool green eyes. "I will require your full cooperation."

"Yeah," Alfred said. "Of course."

"Are you ready to begin? Remember, I am asking you to do as I say without arguing with me over it. I need you to trust me for this to work."

Al nodded again. "I trust you."

Arthur smiled. "I'm very glad."

Al smiled back, feeling the muscles in his back slacken again for what felt like the most loose they'd been in a while. He was going to get better.

"I'm going to ask you to strip."

His muscles tensed back together like a rubber band snapping back into shape, now much more noticeably achy due to their brief reprieve. "What?"

Arthur frowned. "Alfred. You promised."

"…Sorry. Right. Uh." Alfred pulled the blanket up until it covered him completely again. With one hand, he held it shut over his head and with the other hand, he clumsily begin to push off his pants and wiggle out of his shirt, one arm at a time. He was still hard from his earlier dream. Even though his boner had slowly begun to go down after, it sprung back up to full attention as Alfred felt the blanket brush against his naked skin. He peeked back out of the blanket once he was fully naked, only to find Arthur watching him intently. "Um. I. Okay, I did it."

Arthur nodded and began to rifle through the bag he had brought with him. "Very good. Now. The blanket?"

"Couldn't I leave this on? Please? I'm really, really uncomfortable right now," he said.

"Alfred, what did we agree on?"

Alfred squirmed. He slowly released the blanket and folded it over his arms, holding it in front of himself.

"Set it on the couch," Arthur said. Alfred was imagining it, he knew that, but it still felt like Arthur's eyes were burning onto his chest. Slowly, he shuffled behind the couch and replaced the blanket over the edge where he had first picked it up.

"Now come here," Arthur said, bag now on the ground and hands folded behind his back. Alfred groaned quietly and stepped out from behind the couch. Arthur's eyes went directly to his crotch. Alfred was eternally grateful that Arthur still did not drop his poker face and grin at him, or god forbid, laugh. "Eager?"

"I told you, I had a dream before you showed up," Alfred mumbled, coming to a stop a foot or two in front of Arthur.

"Tell me again about it. Details. Close your eyes."

Alfred closed his eyes and tried not to mind Arthur circling him. "Um. Really, not much happened. I was being fucked on the couch is all, um, uh, —_no_!"

He jerked away from Arthur's hands, eyes flying open. He twisted around so quickly to face Arthur that he almost fell over. His eyes landed on the offending strip of fabric Arthur had almost tied around his eyes.

"No," Alfred said, holding his hands up in front of him as though Arthur were holding a knife. "No, no, that was not okay at all."

"Alfred, you are making this much more difficult than it should be," Arthur said, approaching with the blindfold. "I want you to stay still and let me help you."

"This is not help, that will be the opposite of help," Alfred said, arms still up and shoulders still hunched, but naked and frozen before his therapist. His voice withered and died as Arthur tied the blindfold around his face. He whimpered. Not long later he heard the clattering of metal and felt cold steel handcuffs encircle his wrists.

"That's better," said Arthur. "Isn't that much better? Now I want you to listen to me. You are under my control now. You cannot escape."

Alfred's breathing became quick and shallow. Arthur wrapped something stiff and cold around his neck and locked it there. It was too flexible to be another, larger metal cuff, but too solid to be jewelry. It weighed heavy on his neck. His mind jumped to leather. A leather collar. His handcuffed wrists were gripped and he no longer had space in his addled brain to think.

"You will address me as 'Sir'. Can you hear me?"

Alfred whimpered. A warm hand slid down his side and came to rest at his hip.

"I said, you will address me as 'Sir'"

"Yes, Sir," Alfred said. His voice cracked. The hand at his hip traced circles into his skin.

"Good boy," said Arthur. Sir. Arthur. All the faces of Arthur who had fucked Alfred in his dreams flashed through Alfred's mind. The nurse, the demon, the, the, the student who pulled his hair—

Arthur slid a hand into Alfred's hair. Alfred gasped and his cock twitched painfully. He was lead by his hair to, to somewhere he couldn't see, to bend over and—the couch. Arthur bent him over the couch.

"Knees straight," he said.

"I can't bend that far down, Sir," Alfred whispered, but tried to straighten his knees nonetheless. He was jerked upright again by his hair. The grip wasn't at the right spot to make him come, but it was close enough that it made Alfred's knees even weaker. He leaned back far enough to knock into Arthur's shoulder. Off-balance and blind, Alfred tried to shift all his weight into staying as close to that shoulder as he possibly could, even if it meant pinning Arthur's hip between his trembling knees and pressing his whole body up against his therapist. Then, Arthur wrapped an arm around Alfred's waist and pulled him up closer, pressing his thigh up against Alfred's crotch.

He started to grind. He started to cry.

"This won't do," said Arthur. Alfred jumped, finding Arthur's mouth right at the crest of his ear. He wasn't sure if Arthur was referring to the grinding or the tears starting to escape his blindfold. Neither stopped. The hand still in Alfred's hair twisted and twisted him until Alfred was moaning and in so much pain he had to twist his head and his whole body to follow it, fearing the hand would take a whole chunk out of his hair if he didn't. Arthur lead him like that again for a few steps before shoving him down once more. Alfred held his cuffed hands close to his chest and yelped when he felt them hit the raised arm of the couch. "Is that better? Spread your legs. Knees straight."

Trembling, Alfred did as he was told, managing to keep his knees straight this time since the bend wasn't quite so low.

"You've been awful today." Arthur said, one hand adjusting its grip on Alfred's hair—it found the spot, the spot Arthur-the-student-had tugged him at, and oh god Alfred's back arched when Arthur found it—while his other hand slid slowly down Alfred's back to rest on the top of his ass. "You really have. Can you tell me what you did wrong?"

"I-I don't know, Sir," Alfred said, choking. Trying to steady his breathing. Trying to stop crying. This was weak. This was fucking pathetic. He tasted the salt in his mouth and told himself it was time to rip off the blindfold and fight back.

"You hardly listened to a word I said," Arthur said. His hand kneaded Alfred's ass slowly. Pinching him. Feeling him up as the second hand rested threateningly in Alfred's hair. "You fought back. You touched me without permission. That's unacceptable. Do you understand?" Alfred nodded slightly, trying to avoid tugging his hair. "Say what you will refrain from doing next time."

Alfred swallowed the lump in his throat and said, "I won't fight back. I won't touch you. I will l-listen to what you say." He coughed.

"Good boy," said Arthur. His hand stilled. "As punishment, though, I want you to count out each time I strike you."

Alfred's cock twitched again even as the rest of his body seemed to chill. "W-what?"

He got the idea as soon as Arthur's hand came down on his ass for the first time. He yelped, "O-One!"

Again. "Two!"

Again, his ass growing hot, "Three!"

He realized Arthur had not given him a stopping point. He began to squirm on the couch, wanting something, anything to grind on, even as Arthur continued to spank him and he shouted out the numbers, hoping each time that he was shouting out the last blow.

He counted until his ass was numb and his legs couldn't support him anymore. He lost all the numbers in his head in one fell swoop when he came—Arthur pulled his hair so hard he saw stars behind his eyelids. He crumpled to the ground, smearing come across his side.

He lay against the side of the couch, his body aching and little more responsive than a dead weight. He curled with his hands pressed tightly to his chest, gasping for air through his tears.

The handcuffs and collar were removed as he recovered himself. The blindfold came off last. Alfred blinked up at his therapist through blurry, burning eyes. The stinging in his eyes was clearer than even the burning pain in his rear at that moment. He hiccupped.

Arthur, still fully clothed, knelt beside Alfred and wrapped an arm around him. "Very good, Alfred. You did really well. Now, we're going to get you cleaned up and clothed and talk about what just happened."

Shivering and hiccupping, Alfred turned his red eyes up towards his therapist. "A-am I dreaming right now?" he said, his voice wavering and thin.

"No," Arthur said, cupping his cheek and wiping away the tear tracks. "No, my dear. I'm afraid you are very much awake."


	3. Chapter 3

**Warnings in this part: vomiting (in an explicitly non-sexual way) , violence, mentions of blood, violent sex, hallucinations/imperfect comprehension of reality making things seem a lot worse than they physically are.**

**Extra Warning for the especially squeamish: At a point nearer to the end, Alfred believes he is being grievously injured; if things like that bother you, please remember that his perception of reality makes everything much worse than it actually is and he is actually physically perfectly fine, his panic is making it seem much worse than it is.**

Alfred spent most of the week feeling—

_dirty_.

It was not a new feeling to him, but it was revolting in an entirely different way than it had been before.

Arthur had been kind about it during that first session. He had let Alfred go take a shower and pull his clothes back on, and when Alfred came back out, the semen was gone from his couch. It had made his head spin and the room spin with it, looking at that spot where there _should _have been some sort of stain.

Arthur assured him that he was not dreaming. Still not dreaming. I can slap you if you want, Alfred, but I promise you're not—I won't slap you. I won't slap you. Alfred, please, stop shaking and take a seat.

"I didn't used to be like this," he told his reflection that night, staring himself straight in his sunken eyes. He had told Arthur the same thing that day during their therapy session. He stayed out of the blanket, but kept his arms wrapped around himself. "I didn't used to be like this."

Yet it was difficult to remember exactly what it was like to not plan his day around what might happen during his nights.

He woke at some ungodly hour in the morning from a nightmare of—of—of a prison and being molested by the warden. It was one of the few dreams where he had any fight in him anymore. They had become rarer and rarer as the months had gone by, and it had sucked something out of him too, to every night be watching himself beaten and conquered no matter how much he struggled.

He no longer dreamed of running desperately through the forests escaping hunters and crafting clever traps and living on his own off the land. Now, he dreamed of being trapped by Angels, or used as a sex doll who loved to suck cock and suck cock and suck cock and get beaten by his clients. He had been assaulted by tentacles once in his dream, felt them curl around his legs and spread wide open and pound at his pants until they finally broke through the fabric and came up his ass and muffled him by stuffing themselves down his throat until he—

Alfred woke from his dream and puked.

He did not make it to the bathroom, but that was all right, as he had just enough time to scramble to the side of the bed and aim into the metal bucket. He'd had it placed by the side of the bed since before checking himself in to the hospital. It wasn't the first time he had woken from a dream with a curling stomach, but it had been a while.

The room swam in and out of focus. The picture in his mind kept drifting back to him kneeling, shirt cut open, semen and blood dripping down his face as he stared up at the warden's cock, held by his dog tags like a bitch— Alfred wasn't a criminal, he didn't wear dog tags, he wasn't a bitch, _bitch was not a word he called people._

Alfred vomited again. The smell was liable to make him do it a third time. His hand shaking, he reached for the cellphone on his bedside table. The light it produced made him flinch him so badly he almost dropped the phone into his bucket. Gasping for breath and trying to make his trembling fingers obey, he clicked through the phone to his contact's list and slowly scrolled down.

"111Bro" came up first. Alfred's thumb twitched violently and he almost accidentally called, but managed to click back away from that tab. He couldn't call Matthew at, what time was it? Two thirty-seven in the morning. He couldn't call about this. Maybe if he were being assaulted, but not about this.

The next person on his list was "Bastard in skis," an ex-boyfriend and the first person to actually punch Alfred out. They were not very good at being boyfriends but they were excellent at being hazards together. Alfred had lost contact with him not long after the dreams had started; the last time he'd seen his ex was in class right before Alfred had dropped out. No explanation. No notes. No goodbyes. He'd hoped to be back in a semester or two, fixed and functional.

He could not call Ivan.

His stomach churned again and he clutched the metal bucket closer to his chest.

He did not have many contacts between 'B' and 'K'. Miraculously, he managed to steady his breathing and shakily dial Arthur Kirkland's number without too much trouble and set his phone on speaker. He set the phone beside him on the bed and resumed clutching the bucket as tightly as he could.

"Ugh," he heard his therapist say. "Who is it?"

"Alfred," Alfred mumbled. Then, after a short breath, "Alfred Jones, sir," he said more loudly.

"Alfred," he heard Arthur say, the voice sounding just slightly less groggy. "What is the fucking time?—Jesus, it's almost three. What in the world is going on?"

His stomach was finally beginning to calm down, feeling less and less threatening with each breath Alfred took, though his skin remained clammy and cold.

"Dream," he said. "Bad dream. Rape." His breathing shuddered without his consent and he tried to hold his hands steady. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't know who to call."

"It's all right," said Arthur, sighing over the phone even as his tone slipped into the therapist voice he recalled so well from his sessions. "Can you tell me about your dream? Are they getting more violent?"

Alfred shuddered and wiped his face with one of his hands. He felt weak, hardly able to lift his limp wrist. Hardly able to remain sitting up. He wanted to go back to school. Go back to chemistry. He wanted to go back to sleep. He didn't want to relive his nightmare all over again. Not now. Not in the session next week.

"No," he said. "N-no, they started out _more_ violent, I just… I dunno. It felt worse."

"Tell me what happened during it."

Alfred swallowed and slowly, shakily, managed to set down his bucket at the foot of the bed again. He took several long, deep breaths. "I was in a prison cell and my ex-boyfriend walked in…"

000

The next week, Arthur drove him out to an old warehouse. It was owned by Arthur's family, rather than being truly abandoned. His uncle ran a construction company, Alfred learned, and stored spare supplies there. The whole space was largely gray and unused, filled with dust, spare parts, and stacked planks and cinderblocks. Arthur tossed Alfred a bright orange suit with 11201 hand-embroidered on the breast.

Alfred did his best to not hyperventilate as he put it on.

Arthur stood across from him in a knock-off cop costume from the Halloween store downtown. Still, it was enough to set Alfred's nerves on edge, even though he was relieved that Arthur was not six-foot-huge and smiling. Relieved Arthur was not his ex.

"Very good," Arthur said, taking Alfred by the shoulder and turning him around to cuff Alfred's hands behind his back. Arthur had a crop and a baton on his belt. Arthur slid a hand into Alfred's shirt, fiddling with the dog tags that pressed cold against Alfred's chest. "Are you going to fight?"

"I fought in my dream," he said. His throat was dry. Alfred gulped down a breath of air, trying to forget the growing heat in his abdomen and his already tugging arousal.

"Then we'll fight," said Arthur. In the next moment, he slapped Alfred across the face and sent him reeling.

Alfred yelped and tugged away from Arthur, trying to throw his hands out wide to catch his balance, forgetting they were cuffed behind him. He lost his balance instead, tumbling into the concrete floor. He kicked himself up onto his knees before stumbling back onto his feet when a hand tangled in his hair and twisted him around. He gasped and hardened as Arthur's thumb began to rub the spot on his head that Alfred had begun to associate with orgasms. He tried to twist and jerk away.

"You're rather unruly, I'll grant you that," said Arthur, looking down at him from the brim of his hat. "But you don't seem particularly dangerous. Just some punk kid who got thrown in here for being an idiot."

"Let go," said Alfred, barring his teeth up at the cop. "Fuckin' let me go!"

He was rewarded with another slap across his face. His eyes went cross and he fought against the instinct to buck his hips upward.

The cop knocked Alfred again, his knuckles clipping against Alfred's teeth. A bead of red welled up on the cop's knuckles. Nothing compared to the bruise slowly forming on the side of Alfred's face.

"You need to learn you place, still," said the cop, scowling down at his newly injured hand. Alfred glared up at him, licking over his tooth. His gum hurt from the impact.

"I don't listen to anyone, old man," Alfred said, not sure where the words came from. "If you wanna get something on, how about you lean down here and suck me instead?" He was in the middle of trying to laugh his fear away when the cop lifted him up by his hair and kneed him in the gut. "Hurk!"

He felt to the floor, his dog tags clattering on the cement beside him.

"Bitch," the cop said, taking advantage of Alfred's breathlessness to pull out a Swiss army knife and hold it up to Alfred's pants. Alfred yelped and twisted with what little energy he could spare, but was caught by the leg and yanked back closer to the blade. The cop crawled up on top of him, pinning Alfred's legs open with his hips and slashing a wide hole in the crotch. The force put into ripping of the fabric jostled his whole frame.

"Fuck you!" Alfred said, gasping and breathing heavily through his nose. "Fuck you!" His underwear was tugged down. He heard the pop of a bottle of lube being opened. "F-fuck…" He felt two fingers pry him open. "No…"

The cop folded him in half, bending Alfred so that his knees were pressed down against his chest and his ass was up in the air at a difficult angle. If there was a condom, he didn't hear the wrapper or see anything being put on, but he felt each thrust into him reverberate directly into his ribcage. His head scraped against the concrete as his heart pounded in his chest, and all he could hear was the sick squelch of each thrust and the quiet gasps and moans that came with each one.

Because of the angle his body was bent at, Alfred came on his own face. His glasses were smeared. It covered his lips and the bruise on his cheek. The cop still fucking him laughed.

Half an hour later, Arthur gave him a ride home.

He sat down on his couch, his glasses still smeared with semen and blood. He wrapped himself in his blue blanket, a cup of hot chocolate in his hands and Arthur with his notebook sitting in a wooden chair nearby.

"Now," Arthur said, "you had a dream about being raped by a police officer? And usually your dreams take someone's face?"

Alfred nodded, his throat sore and his eyes beginning to burn. "Yeah," he said, raising the cocoa to his swollen lips. "Someone I trusted. It always is."

000

"Oh my God, Alfred!" Matthew said, holding the door open to let Alfred in for his weekly pancake breakfast. His twin's eyes were wide and bright. But Alfred no longer looked very much like his twin, with his eyes sunken deep in dark circles and the bruises crawling up his sides and face. "What on earth happened?"

"Man, I got so drunk last night," Alfred said with a slumping smile and slack arms by his side. "I don't even remember."

000

Not every session was so elaborate. Not every session left him with marks.

Sometimes, Arthur just brought in his blindfold, brought in his handcuffs, brought in his gag and his earmuffs. Arthur strapped him to a chair in the kitchen and left him sense-deprived and alone until he learned how to meditate there. Until the feeling of gloved hands spreading him apart was soothing. Until he asked Arthur to leave the blindfold on for their actual therapy session, because it was the calmest he'd felt in months. He fell asleep in the middle of wondering out loud where his preoccupation with restraint and captivity came from, and why it would manifest itself in the form of slowly-vanishing dreams.

He wished every session could be that sort of soothing blindfolded session. He learned to think back to those sessions each time he woke up in the middle of the night. He closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing and put on his headphones turned up to the highest volume. It was the thing that worked best so far. His dreams became less upsetting when he woke and knew he would be able to sink himself down into that state of safe restraint.

He wouldn't mind if every session were like those few sensory-deprived, safe sessions, but Arthur insisted they only helped in tangent with the sessions that give Alfred all new sorts of nightmares.

Arthur was the therapist.

Alfred had to believe Arthur knew what he was doing, or else Alfred would have to admit the best kind of nightmare was the one he could wake up from.

000

One day, Arthur called before their session to instruct Alfred to draw x-marks on his arms. Alfred did so, and spent the next few hours waiting for Arthur in nothing but some tight black pants—literally nothing else, not socks, not underwear. He paced a trench in his living room floor, rubbing his marked arms, worrying that he would be driven to the edge of some woods and made to run through them and be hunted down and fucked on the forest floor.

He was wrong.

Arthur arrived in a bright red suit with frills and cufflinks and gold earrings. There was a hat as well, though instead of wearing it Arthur carried the hat by his side when he came in. His hands were gloved.

He held Alfred on his lap and they conducted their session like that. With Alfred's arms wrapped around him and Alfred's nose nestled into Arthur's hair.

"Tell me about your childhood," Arthur said, rubbing Alfred's back gently, easing all the stress out of it.

And Alfred told Arthur of all the days he spent wreaking havoc on the streets, of the time he was caught drinking and fighting when he was fourteen, and the night he spent sleeping on a park bench when he was too frightened to go home after his father had a particularly bad night. He was a country brat, he told Arthur, and his whole youth was spent as a wild child.

000

There was a day when Arthur blindfolded him and bound his hands up to the headboard. Arthur didn't fuck Alfred that day, but manhandled him, jerking and pinching and slapping, until Alfred came.

Alfred felt every place that Arthur's hands had been long after they were removed. His whole body was sticky and cold by the end. Bruises tenderized him, crawling up his sides after weeks of rough treatment. He could feel where Arthur's hands were every time he shifted his hips. Every time he flinched.

After he came, the blindfold was removed, and before anything else Arthur smeared his semen across Alfred's face and left immediately after. Left to go to the living room, leaving Alfred to clean up after himself.

Alfred stumbled, half-blind, to the bathroom.

He was covered head to toe in handprints of black paint. He panicked at first—he took chemistry, he _excelled _at chemistry, he was going to _be _a chemist until the fucking dreams forced him to drop out of college after his second fall semester—he didn't want to have any kind of shit happen to him because his therapist didn't understand that a lot of paint was toxic and unfit for use on skin. He almost fell to the floor and hyperventilated, but somehow managed to fall a little ways into his spot of safe restraint, keeping his head and breath steady even though he shook violently trying to start the shower and get the shit off him as soon as possible.

He fell in the tub as soon as the shower started. Cold. Then rapidly spiraling into hot. He was probably shouting, but he couldn't hear himself over the water and the pounding in his ears.

He squeezed his eyes shut so he didn't have to see the dark tendrils washing off him, curling down the drain like tiny gripping hands.

It was bodypaint, he discovered later. It was nice, safe, water-based, non-toxic, non-allergenic, approved for cosmetic-use by the FDA, simple, safe, _safe_, opaque black body paint.

He cried on Arthur's lap as they finished up the therapy session.

He hadn't dreamed in days.

000

Several months passed.

Alfred started getting hard before Arthur even stepped through the door. When the clock hit five minutes the hour that Arthur arrives, Alfred's cock stirred and he curled up in his blanket on the couch to wait for Arthur to let himself in.

Arthur had a key to Alfred's apartment now. Early on, a job had kept Alfred a little late and Arthur had been stranded outside the apartment for almost half an hour. Alfred got him the key after that. It was pointless in retrospect, though, as Alfred decided at some point to stop taking jobs on the days Arthur visited. It meant working longer on weekends, cutting out times he'd wanted to spend reconnecting with friends and going to church. But it was already so long since he went to church, and his friends were distant with him, anyway. Alfred hadn't gone out drinking or bowling with Ivan since dropping out. Alfred hadn't played MMORPGs with Kiku for almost as long. He only saw his brother when doing the weekly house cleaning and pancake breakfast.

Matthew said Alfred looked thinner. Less tired. Maybe a bit bony.

Victories.

Alfred had always been a fatass. Seeing himself naked so often—in the mirror, where Arthur fucked him—only made him realize that more, recently. It hadn't bothered him as much when we was younger. He wasn't sure why it bothered him now. He was losing weight. That was good.

He was getting better!

The door clicked to signal it had been locked, and Alfred jumped, startled, and realized he wasn't alone anymore.

Arthur raised an eyebrow from the doorway and drew the shades closed. "Absent minded today?"

"A bit," said Alfred. His voice sounded quiet to his ears, but Arthur seemed to understand him well enough. "I was actually just kind of thinking. Um. There was something I wanted to talk to you about."

"Yes?" Arthur said, setting his bag down and settling into his chair across from Alfred's couch. Alfred couldn't help but watch the bag from where he sat, not sure if he was wary of it or enticed.

"I think I'm cured."

Arthur straightened his back. "Excuse me?"

Alfred shifted on the couch and smiled faintly, trying to ignore his discomfort. "Well, uh… it's been a few months now. And I haven't had any dreams like I used to. Or, anyway, it's been a long time. I think your treatment actually worked somehow?"

Arthur smiled at him. "I'm very glad it's been working. Though I'm sorry it sounds like you doubted it would."

Alfred cringed down on himself, twisting as though it would get rid of his embarrassment that he had admitted he doubted his therapist. There was a spike of cold fear in his gut when he thought of how Arthur could have reacted to that instead. It made saying his next words all the more difficult. He coughed into his elbow and tried to maintain what composure he had. There was no reason for him to be nervous, even though his hands were clammy and his cock was erect and ready to go. "Yeah, you've been… it's been an experience and it's helped, definitely—" he no longer knew if he trembled with anticipation or fear when we woke up on mornings when he had therapy "—but I mean, it's… it's getting time that I really do need to apply to college again if I want to get in for spring term. And get on with my life."

Arthur's smile dropped from his face.

Alfred crumbled.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm really, really, sorry, it's not that I don't like the therapy. I mean. I mean I know I'm not supposed to _like _it, but I can't—I can't do it _and_ try to go back to—I."

Arthur stood. His chair scratched the floor. Alfred flinched and his voice died as Arthur approached. He put a hand on Alfred's cheek, his thumb stroking just below Alfred's eye where a week ago there had been bruises.

"Ah dear," said Arthur. "It seems we have a very naughty devil here, doesn't it?"

"Wuh-what?" Alfred said. Arthur's nails dug into his jaw.

"Don't play dumb," Arthur said. "You just tried to escape Heaven. I think that warrants some sort of divine retribution, don't you?"

The blood drained from Alfred's face as he stared up at the Angel's father, unsure of how he didn't recognize the patriarch of his doppelganger's flock before.

"I didn't mean to," Alfred said. "I-I didn't, I don't—"

"But you did," the patriarch said, running his left hand down Alfred's cheek, trailing down his neck before gripping him tightly. "Even after we were so kind to you. We let you rest and have your comforts. We let you wear clothes, pretending to be unlike the naked beast you truly are."

Alfred brought his claws up—they were clipped, he couldn't scratch—and tried to pry the patriarch's fingers away from his throat. He was rewarded with the patriarch's right hand tangling in his hair and giving it a jerk. Alfred's knees went weak and he crumpled until he knelt, moaning.

The right hand remained knotted in his hair, releasing him only briefly as the patriarch began to jerk at Alfred's shirt, pulling it roughly up over his head and tossing it on the floor. Alfred's glasses went with it, caught up in the folds as the shirt was wrenched over his head. He wondered idly if he would have bruises the next day from it, but promptly forgot those thoughts when the hand came back to his hair and he was shoved down to the floor. The patriarch kicked Alfred's legs apart and came down on top of him, snarling and tugging Alfred's pants and underwear off with the same ferocity his shirt had been stripped of him with. If he had been wearing shoes or socks, he was certain they would have also been hurtled across the room with the rest of his clothes.

He scrambled to get out from under his assailant, but each time he tried to rise the heel of the patriarch's shoe would come down in the small of his back and drove him down once more.

"Now, what should we do with such an unruly devil?" the patriarch said. His voice was low and beautiful. Alfred snarled and tried again to get out from under his heel. This time he was kicked in the ribs and rolled again onto his stomach. "I could make an example out of you I suppose."

"No!" Alfred said, twisting harder again to escape and winding up slamming himself against the couch as he tried to blindly jerk in any direction further from the figure looming above him. He remembered from somewhere, something like this happening, and the terror in his stomach eroded what arousal he had still as Arthur continued to speak.

"We'll start with your wings," he said as he held Alfred down to the floor. His hands pressed into Alfred's shoulder blades, and as the pressure left Alfred could have sworn he felt the two stalks of wings on his back. "Then maybe your horns," the hands came up and twisted the hair on the side of Alfred's head. "Then, perhaps even that wicked little tail of yours." His ass was smacked.

"Stop," Alfred said. His trembling was too much and he gave up any hope of throwing the patriarch off of his back. Out of the corner of his eye, he could have sworn he saw red hedge clippers. "Stop, stop!"

"No."

The patriarch pressed him into the floor and bit his shoulder blades until he gnawed through Alfred's wings. Alfred thrashed through the first, but lay exhausted and shivering as his second shoulder blade was bit.

His hands clenched into fists when two tufts of his hair were tugged loose, but he did not raise them to strike.

When he felt his ass guided into the air and invaded by two violent hands, he focused on his breathing, angling his neck upward.

He stared at the door while he was fucked, wondering if he could show his face beyond it ever again.

000

Alfred realizes he is dreaming and begins to cry.

Then he realizes that nothing is happening. The tears vanish as if they were never there, leaving his cheeks dry as deserts.

It is his own living room. He steps out his front door to peer out into the hallway of the hospital. He steps out into the hall, a little bright eyed and lighter than he thought he was, and opens the first door on his left. He climbs the stairs he finds behind the door, all five hundred winding steps, all the way up to a pale bathroom. The steps were an easy climb; he is not winded at the end.

He steps into the bathroom, finding it familiar in the way he understands dreams must be familiar, finding the claws in the feet of the bathtub familiar, and the double-fauceted sink, and the ornate silver frame of the mirror where he can see his own face.

His first reflection greets him, and he wonders how he didn't notice the blood running out of his nose or the bruises that dot his skin. Most of all, he wonders how he did not notice the red rope binding him. Wrapping around his crotch and his arms and legs and torso, all connected and strung around the heavy leather collar on his neck. He realizes this and grows ten tons heavier, struggling now to not collapse onto the floor under his own weight.

His second reflection is dark and trailing a hand down his battered chest.

As soon as Alfred realizes he has two reflections, he recognizes the Angel.

The Angel, his doppelganger, lifts his head and meet's Alfred's own eyes in the mirror. The doppelganger is mahogany and umber, and warm against Alfred's sore back where what remains of his wings twitch helplessly. Clipped.

"How is it you don't realize how powerful you are?"

The Angel speaks.

"Alfred."

But Alfred is too busy screaming.


End file.
